Page 12 - J Delaney - City of Cessnock Education and Schools

7.

E DUC AT I 0 N

Another important feature introduced by this Act, was "Compulsory
Education". Also, by the Act, teachers became civil servants and were paid
exclusively from State Funds. The Act fixed school fees at threepence
per week per pupil, and this money was to be forwarded to Consolidated
Revenue. (Note: School fees were abolished on 8th October, 1906).
The Act also commenced the entry of the State into the field of secondary
education. This broadening provision created three new types of schools -
the Superior Public School; . the High School; and the Evening Public School.
A Superior Public School was one which combined primary and secondary pupils
at the same school. The Evening Public School had been designed for ado-
lescents and adults who had received inadequate schooling - however, with
their narrow curriculum and unpopular hours, most of these were short-lived
and in 1911 were replace~ by Evening Continuation Schools.

Perhaps the most drastic alteration made by the Public Instruction
Act 1880, was the withdrawal of State Aid to Denominational Schools. The
various religions, particularly the Roman Catholic Church, responded with
decisions to build and fin~nce an independent education system of their own,
staffed by religious Orders of teaching nuns and brothers - many of who were
recruits from overseas, particularly Ireland. The earlier Public Schools
Act, 1866, had been rejected by the Catholic Church leaders and Bishops,
as being inadequate, and they were insisting on the retention of religious
denominational education under Church control. In 1866, a local teaching
Order, the Sisters of St. Joseph, founded by Mother Mary Mc Killop,
had attracted local nuns. Catholic parents had been encouraged to send
their children to theie Church Schools, but following the 1880 Public
Instruction Act, the parents were being DIRECTED to do so by the Bishops.
From that time, the Catholic school system grew steadily until by the
1960's it educated up to one-fifth of all Australian chilcren. From that
period on, there has been pressure to obtain a larger share of State aid
for Church schools.